Get ALPRs the Flock out of Mount Holly, NC
The Issue
From: The Citizens of Mount Holly, North Carolina
To: Mount Holly City Council and Mayor David Moore
400 East Central Avenue, Mount Holly, NC 28120
Date: August 25, 2026
Subject: A Formal Demand for the Removal of Mass Surveillance Devices
We, the citizens of Mount Holly, North Carolina, demand the removal of all ALPR devices, and any other tool of mass surveillance provided by any company immediately, and in perpetuity. For the purposes of this petition, anytime the word Flock is used, it should be understood to include all ALPR devices produced by, provided by, and maintained by any company anywhere, as well as any other tools of mass surveillance.
“We are all under investigation at all times for all crimes.” Dr. Viet Trinh made this statement at a public hearing summarizing the shift in how the justice system works under AI. An Ohio State University professor and mass surveillance historian, he stated, “In a traditional investigation, a crime is supposed to happen first, and then detectives identify a suspect and then those suspects are placed under investigation. But under Flock, we are all, everybody in this room, every day, every time you get into your cars, we are all under investigation at all times for all crimes."
The Institute for Justice states:
“Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) were sold to American communities as a targeted tool for catching car thieves and finding missing people. What they actually purchased has grown into something far broader and more frightening: an AI-powered network of cameras that photograph and log the movement of every driver who passes, whether or not they are suspected of any crime."
The ACLU states “ALPR companies like Flock violate our privacy across the country by taking photos of every vehicle passing their cameras, logging detailed information about them into a massive nationwide database, and making it possible to track those vehicles and apply AI to uncover their occupants' private patterns of life."
And, “Collecting massive amounts of location data from ordinary citizens—without cause, without consent, and without meaningful limits—constitutes an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment.”
When we pick up our phone, even knowing the data it collects, we also know that we can opt out. We don’t have to carry a smart phone, use Ring cameras, engage in any social media, or any other invasive technology, and there are people who individually opt out of those things. We cannot opt out of ALPRs, and we were never asked if we wanted them. It wasn’t until we pushed back that the city provided us with information about them. The following is not a comprehensive list of the problem we have with this technology, but is a small sample of reason we do not want them in our town:
We were told Flock does not track civilians, it just reads license plates. Unfortunately, this is not accurate. Investigations by journalists have revealed that various agencies have used these cameras in a way that develop “patterns of life” of vehicle movements by sifting through the immense amount of data these systems make available, and that federal agents “watch travel patterns on the highway ‘through license plate scans and other surveillance technologies.’”
In one situation documented by the Associated Press, agents were able to trace a business man from his arrival in Houston, TX to his overnight stay in another town, and back to a business meeting in Houston. They knew which hotel he stayed in, and that he picked up a female colleague on his way to his business meeting the next day. The subsequent illegal search of his vehicle led to a lawsuit. 1
In April of this year, Oshkosh, WI ended their contract with Flock, because a Flock representative lied when he told the town council that the system did not create “heat maps” or movement patterns tracking vehicles. Oshkosh’s police chief informed the council that the system CAN generate tracking heat maps. 2
Through a 10 month investigation of nationwide searches, The Electronic Frontier Foundation found that more than 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches specifically targeting protest activities, and protest groups, having the ability to track movement patterns of people attending and supporting constitutionally protected activities before any crime had been committed. (3)
We will not accuse you of misleading us, but we will tell you that you have been misled if you have been told that ALPRs do not track people or enable tracking.
“If you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” This has also proven false. ALPRs read about 20 BILLION license plates a month (globally). Flock states that they have a safety rate of 93% to 96%. Assuming a 4% error rate, that’s 800 MILLION errors every month. 800 million opportunities for high-risk encounters between officers and civilians. But, according to Business Insider, an audit conducted in Roseville, CA found a 71% error rate. That is 14.2 BILLION misreads every month.
August 2026, Milwaukee, WI and Brookfield, WI a motorist was pulled over by officers with guns drawn twice in one week due to recurring algorithmic failures. Her daughter has been terrified to get in the car since.
August 2026, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, a family was pulled over and ordered out by police with guns drawn because the vehicle was erroneously flagged as being involved in an active homicide investigation. When the dust settled, the officers had no idea why this vehicle had been flagged.
June 2026, Plymouth, MN, an automotive journalist was test driving a Range Rover. Suddenly four police cruisers boxed him in with lights and sirens going. While they did not pull their weapons, and the driver was able to show his innocence, they warned him not to drive anywhere else because another read would render the same results. They even told him that if he were in Minneapolis, LEO would have come at him with guns drawn.
February 2026, Sherwood, AR, a misread led to an innocent couple removed from their SUV at gunpoint while their 6-week old baby was left inside. After realizing the mistake, an officer uncuffing the couple stated, “Those cameras are placed everywhere... I'm not gonna say they're completely perfect, because, you know, that's modern technology.”
September 2025, a Columbine Valley police officer showed up at Chrisanna Elzer’s home, and without conducting any other investigation, accused her of stealing a package because he was 100% certain that she was guilty due to her vehicle being matched by a Flock camera. She was charged. She had to spend her money and time to get out of these charges because that officer was so certain in his Flock information that he would not entertain hearing her alibi.
These errors, more numerous than what we have listed here, have already resulted in injuries, trauma, and false arrests for people who were not doing anything wrong.
We were told Flock does not capture the faces of the individuals in the car. A report by the New York Times reveals that the cameras have the power to photograph faces through polarized windshields, and that those faces do end up in police accessible cloud databases alongside the vehicle information.
We were told Flock cannot access any information from your devices inside your car. However, ALPR customers can add on technology that can build a comprehensive digital profile of who is inside the car, and the city has not made a statement that they do not use this “wireless sniffing” technology.
Additionally, investigations have revealed that police search systems often purchase data from commercial data brokers, making it possible to quickly find information about the owner and/or driver including their cell phone numbers, income brackets, shopping habits, and their family structures. So whether or not the ALPR itself can gather that data, there are ways around that restriction.
Add to the above, the potential for misuse. The Institute of Justice manages a tracking index that has tracked more than 140 specific incidents of ALPR misuse. In many cases, officers had inappropriately accessed them for their own purposes 600 and 700 times. Many of these abuses were not caught by the agencies themselves, but found after victims reported incidents and an investigation was conducted.
Other misuses include sharing data with other agencies in violation of state privacy laws.
Mass surveillance can easily chill political dissent and cause harm to groups and individuals being singled out for politically charged reasons. And what happens when the government turns on its citizens it has decided to demonize?
Anyone who has ever paid attention to history knows of a time when a government called good evil, and evil good. We don’t have to cross an ocean to find an example. Less than 200 years ago, The Underground Railroad began helping “freedom seekers” to safety. The government called the freedom seekers property, and their owners, wealthy citizens, were operating within a legal framework. The individuals helping freedom seekers were the criminals.When they were caught, they were subjected to prison time, fines, civil litigation, and even death. Yet, they persisted to do what was right, even when their government called it wrong. They are estimated to have saved between 30,000 to 100,000 lives, possibly more. While we don’t know exactly how many lives were saved, we do know that in a world of mass surveillance, it would have been lower, if their resistance could have existed at all.
We don’t live in a world where it’s impossible to imagine a government turning on its people, conflating what is right with what is criminal. As long as power hungry men exist, the ability to resist must exist alongside them. Mass surveillance destroys that, and mass surveillance has exploded, growing by 50% since August 2024. We are not upset that we can’t commit crime with impunity. We are aware that this is a continuation of the erosion of our privacy, and is tantamount to a non-stop warrantless search.
While the courts have yet to define ALPRs as unconstitutional breaches of our individual liberties, we the people, from whom you obtain your consent to govern, know that they are. Unlike a phone, or an app, we cannot opt out of this technology, and we have not consented to the search and we want the mass surveillance to end. Remove them all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/magazine/flock-cameras-surveillance-state.html
375
The Issue
From: The Citizens of Mount Holly, North Carolina
To: Mount Holly City Council and Mayor David Moore
400 East Central Avenue, Mount Holly, NC 28120
Date: August 25, 2026
Subject: A Formal Demand for the Removal of Mass Surveillance Devices
We, the citizens of Mount Holly, North Carolina, demand the removal of all ALPR devices, and any other tool of mass surveillance provided by any company immediately, and in perpetuity. For the purposes of this petition, anytime the word Flock is used, it should be understood to include all ALPR devices produced by, provided by, and maintained by any company anywhere, as well as any other tools of mass surveillance.
“We are all under investigation at all times for all crimes.” Dr. Viet Trinh made this statement at a public hearing summarizing the shift in how the justice system works under AI. An Ohio State University professor and mass surveillance historian, he stated, “In a traditional investigation, a crime is supposed to happen first, and then detectives identify a suspect and then those suspects are placed under investigation. But under Flock, we are all, everybody in this room, every day, every time you get into your cars, we are all under investigation at all times for all crimes."
The Institute for Justice states:
“Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) were sold to American communities as a targeted tool for catching car thieves and finding missing people. What they actually purchased has grown into something far broader and more frightening: an AI-powered network of cameras that photograph and log the movement of every driver who passes, whether or not they are suspected of any crime."
The ACLU states “ALPR companies like Flock violate our privacy across the country by taking photos of every vehicle passing their cameras, logging detailed information about them into a massive nationwide database, and making it possible to track those vehicles and apply AI to uncover their occupants' private patterns of life."
And, “Collecting massive amounts of location data from ordinary citizens—without cause, without consent, and without meaningful limits—constitutes an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment.”
When we pick up our phone, even knowing the data it collects, we also know that we can opt out. We don’t have to carry a smart phone, use Ring cameras, engage in any social media, or any other invasive technology, and there are people who individually opt out of those things. We cannot opt out of ALPRs, and we were never asked if we wanted them. It wasn’t until we pushed back that the city provided us with information about them. The following is not a comprehensive list of the problem we have with this technology, but is a small sample of reason we do not want them in our town:
We were told Flock does not track civilians, it just reads license plates. Unfortunately, this is not accurate. Investigations by journalists have revealed that various agencies have used these cameras in a way that develop “patterns of life” of vehicle movements by sifting through the immense amount of data these systems make available, and that federal agents “watch travel patterns on the highway ‘through license plate scans and other surveillance technologies.’”
In one situation documented by the Associated Press, agents were able to trace a business man from his arrival in Houston, TX to his overnight stay in another town, and back to a business meeting in Houston. They knew which hotel he stayed in, and that he picked up a female colleague on his way to his business meeting the next day. The subsequent illegal search of his vehicle led to a lawsuit. 1
In April of this year, Oshkosh, WI ended their contract with Flock, because a Flock representative lied when he told the town council that the system did not create “heat maps” or movement patterns tracking vehicles. Oshkosh’s police chief informed the council that the system CAN generate tracking heat maps. 2
Through a 10 month investigation of nationwide searches, The Electronic Frontier Foundation found that more than 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches specifically targeting protest activities, and protest groups, having the ability to track movement patterns of people attending and supporting constitutionally protected activities before any crime had been committed. (3)
We will not accuse you of misleading us, but we will tell you that you have been misled if you have been told that ALPRs do not track people or enable tracking.
“If you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” This has also proven false. ALPRs read about 20 BILLION license plates a month (globally). Flock states that they have a safety rate of 93% to 96%. Assuming a 4% error rate, that’s 800 MILLION errors every month. 800 million opportunities for high-risk encounters between officers and civilians. But, according to Business Insider, an audit conducted in Roseville, CA found a 71% error rate. That is 14.2 BILLION misreads every month.
August 2026, Milwaukee, WI and Brookfield, WI a motorist was pulled over by officers with guns drawn twice in one week due to recurring algorithmic failures. Her daughter has been terrified to get in the car since.
August 2026, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, a family was pulled over and ordered out by police with guns drawn because the vehicle was erroneously flagged as being involved in an active homicide investigation. When the dust settled, the officers had no idea why this vehicle had been flagged.
June 2026, Plymouth, MN, an automotive journalist was test driving a Range Rover. Suddenly four police cruisers boxed him in with lights and sirens going. While they did not pull their weapons, and the driver was able to show his innocence, they warned him not to drive anywhere else because another read would render the same results. They even told him that if he were in Minneapolis, LEO would have come at him with guns drawn.
February 2026, Sherwood, AR, a misread led to an innocent couple removed from their SUV at gunpoint while their 6-week old baby was left inside. After realizing the mistake, an officer uncuffing the couple stated, “Those cameras are placed everywhere... I'm not gonna say they're completely perfect, because, you know, that's modern technology.”
September 2025, a Columbine Valley police officer showed up at Chrisanna Elzer’s home, and without conducting any other investigation, accused her of stealing a package because he was 100% certain that she was guilty due to her vehicle being matched by a Flock camera. She was charged. She had to spend her money and time to get out of these charges because that officer was so certain in his Flock information that he would not entertain hearing her alibi.
These errors, more numerous than what we have listed here, have already resulted in injuries, trauma, and false arrests for people who were not doing anything wrong.
We were told Flock does not capture the faces of the individuals in the car. A report by the New York Times reveals that the cameras have the power to photograph faces through polarized windshields, and that those faces do end up in police accessible cloud databases alongside the vehicle information.
We were told Flock cannot access any information from your devices inside your car. However, ALPR customers can add on technology that can build a comprehensive digital profile of who is inside the car, and the city has not made a statement that they do not use this “wireless sniffing” technology.
Additionally, investigations have revealed that police search systems often purchase data from commercial data brokers, making it possible to quickly find information about the owner and/or driver including their cell phone numbers, income brackets, shopping habits, and their family structures. So whether or not the ALPR itself can gather that data, there are ways around that restriction.
Add to the above, the potential for misuse. The Institute of Justice manages a tracking index that has tracked more than 140 specific incidents of ALPR misuse. In many cases, officers had inappropriately accessed them for their own purposes 600 and 700 times. Many of these abuses were not caught by the agencies themselves, but found after victims reported incidents and an investigation was conducted.
Other misuses include sharing data with other agencies in violation of state privacy laws.
Mass surveillance can easily chill political dissent and cause harm to groups and individuals being singled out for politically charged reasons. And what happens when the government turns on its citizens it has decided to demonize?
Anyone who has ever paid attention to history knows of a time when a government called good evil, and evil good. We don’t have to cross an ocean to find an example. Less than 200 years ago, The Underground Railroad began helping “freedom seekers” to safety. The government called the freedom seekers property, and their owners, wealthy citizens, were operating within a legal framework. The individuals helping freedom seekers were the criminals.When they were caught, they were subjected to prison time, fines, civil litigation, and even death. Yet, they persisted to do what was right, even when their government called it wrong. They are estimated to have saved between 30,000 to 100,000 lives, possibly more. While we don’t know exactly how many lives were saved, we do know that in a world of mass surveillance, it would have been lower, if their resistance could have existed at all.
We don’t live in a world where it’s impossible to imagine a government turning on its people, conflating what is right with what is criminal. As long as power hungry men exist, the ability to resist must exist alongside them. Mass surveillance destroys that, and mass surveillance has exploded, growing by 50% since August 2024. We are not upset that we can’t commit crime with impunity. We are aware that this is a continuation of the erosion of our privacy, and is tantamount to a non-stop warrantless search.
While the courts have yet to define ALPRs as unconstitutional breaches of our individual liberties, we the people, from whom you obtain your consent to govern, know that they are. Unlike a phone, or an app, we cannot opt out of this technology, and we have not consented to the search and we want the mass surveillance to end. Remove them all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/magazine/flock-cameras-surveillance-state.html
The Decision Makers
Supporter Voices
Petition Updates
Share this petition
Petition created on August 27, 2026